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Insulation will now go on outside wallSince our last update we have changed the insulation plan. We were originally planning to insulate the walls around the main area of the house with the living room, kitchen and dining room. This would have involved insulating two exterior walls and two walls that bordered inner walls. We decided it makes more sense to insulate the exterior wall of the big room, since we want to take that paneling out eventually anyhow. So we started taking out that paneling. We've got some vids of this that I'll upload soon/eventually.
MalathionWe took the carpet out of the big room/future workshop and I found a source of one of the rank smells that has been plaguing the house since well, since I first set foot in it. There was a jug of the insecticide
malathion. It smells like a cross between a dead animal and sewer gas. Very glad to get that out of the house.
GroundingOn Sunday the husband of a lady PJs mom used to chat with on the porch (they lived across the street from the house in the early 80s) came by and installed a grounding rod with PJ. He's an electrician and it was pretty awesome that he helped with this. Oklahoma has a lot of really nice people.
Re-installing wiringArmed with our circuit map, we were ready to start pulling wires and replacing them. A few of the circuits have GOT to go - they are very thick, covered in cloth and a few of them are frayed where they go through the 2x4s. We wanted to change the way the circuits run too. Some of the way they did it didn't make a lot of sense. We definitely need another circuit in the kitchen. It had one circuit for all receptacles, with the two additional 110 volt circuits running in to power the stove/cooktop together. We have two spare slots on the circuit breaker, so we will add a new 240 volt circuit for the stove. Also need an outlet for the vent (vents are good - especially if you like to cook Indian food like curry). We will use the two circuits that used to go in to the stove for the rest of the kitchen outlets. The electrical books we are reading say it's best to have three circuits in the kitchen, including one for the stove.
The ceiling incidentTo get started on the re-wiring job, we pulled the old cloth wires out of the kitchen, and through the hollowed out walls to where they enter the part of the house that is drywalled - we're not going to tear down those walls. No way. So at this point we went into the attic to look at the top of the circuit breaker (main switch off for all electrical work). Its such a mess up there, it can give you a headache just looking at it. We're not sure why, but at some point the ceiling in the house was lowered. Why would anyone want
lower ceilings? Anyhow, so up in the attic there is a second layer of ceiling beams and there is drywall attached to the beams - about 1/3 or half of it has fallen down and is resting on the cellulose fluff insulation that covers the current ceiling. Where it has not fallen down it is very hard to see things and move around. The area between the attic entrance and the top of the breaker box was hidden by this layer of drywall. I was up there tearing out the drywall and I fell through. I used my killer instincts to grab the ceiling beam and PJ was standing at the circuit right below me and he grabbed me and everything was fine except for the giant mess I made. Really if I had killer instincts, I wouldn't have fallen at all.
The battleIt feels like this house is out to whoop our butts. The battle is on, we are going to get it. We are going to finish it and make it nice and there is nothing the house can do about it!
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